Hockey in August

A few of our favorite US-born NHLers participated in Team USA's Olympic Orientation Camp today...amongst the group was our very own Ryan Miller. It's pretty funny how excited a three and a half minute video interview with him got me. I can't believe it's been almost 4 months since we've been graced with a locker room interview with Ryan Miller. Makes me remember that hockey season is right around the corner which is CRAZY! I've missed his insightful and articulate interviews...soon enough he'll be in the our dressing room, addressing our media, and talking about our team. Can you feel the excitement? I know I can. I enjoyed how graceful Ryan was when talking about not being chosen for the 2006 Olympics, and how he wishes Tim Thomas luck when he's playing for Team USA but he politely and respectfully says how he wants the Sabres to kick his ass when he's playing for the Bruins. Atta boy, Ryan. I'm looking forward to more coverage of the camp within the next few days...maybe if we're lucky we'll get another interview out of Miller. I was looking up the rosters for the camp, and the players were divided into two practice groups. I noticed that Ryan was in the same group as a certain South Buffalo native...I couldn't help but wonder if there was any interaction between the two and if it was *awkwarrddd*.

It also appears as if Andrew Peters has accepted the fact that the Sabres are not interested in having him return next season. I know it's probably in the best interest for the team, but I know that Peters was a very popular player amongst his fellow teammates and he always seemed like a good guy off the ice. I wish him nothing but good luck and success in his future, wherever it may be.

Yesterday I came home after spending the weekend with my family up at my cousin's cottage. I am sooo red from being on a boat for pratically two days straight. My Irish genes have blessed me with fair skin which burns very easily when exposed to the sun. I'm usually smart and I always wear sunscreen when I know I'm going to be out in the sun for a long time, but it completely slipped my mind while I went boating. It was only until I felt my thighs cooking in the sunlight in the middle of the lake that I realized that I should have put on some SPF. I also have a few bruises and welts from going tubing...good times. I would post pictures of myself tubing that my cousin took of me, but unfortunately we suffered a casuality on the boat. Which was my camera. Saaaahh sad. A crazy title wave from another boat's wake coupled with a crazy boat driver are the culprits. Apparently the whole bow of our boat was submerged, but I couldn't really tell because I was too busy getting drenched by the wave. Luckily for me it was only my point and shoot (no way in hell would I bring my DSLR on a boat, I'm not THAT ambitious), but I'm kind of bummed that my memory card was ruined too because I lost all of my pictures. Most of the pictures had been uploaded, but I still hadn't uploaded my pictures from Lollapalooza and from my weekend at the cottage, obviously. Oh well...there are worse things that happen in life.

Despite my sunburn and my camera getting ruined, I had a great weekend with my family. I can't think of many other things in the world that relax me more than a nice boat ride on the lake. It's one of my favorite things to do. And if I'm in the need for a thrill, I like to go tubing. Otherwise, I just enjoy sitting on the boat and kicking back a few. Ahh, memories.

I've taken care of a lot of things school-wise the past few days which feels nice...like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. But I'm still trying to get into two classes that are currently full...so hopefully I find a way to squeeze into them before school starts on the 31st. Keeping my fingers crossed. I also need to figure out which games I'm going to go to this season...I think mini-packs need to be received by the 28th. Yeah, I need to get on that.

Helloooo, Mistah Grier

In my last post I said that it would probably be a long time before I could update again discussing any Sabres news. Well color me happily surprised. I've said before that it's a long offseason and that there was still plenty of time for the Sabres' management to make another move...and I think they have successfully made a move that will both be beneficial to the team and very pleasing for the fans.

When I got a text alert from the Sabres last night, I had to re-read it about three times before I finally believed it was true. Grier? No way! I was pretty surprised considering he didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the organization when he departed, but that all appears to be water under the bridge now. Grier was definitely one of my favorite Sabres when he was with us and I was extremely disappointed when he didn't return to the team. I never would have thought that he would have came back to the Sabres...but here he is, crawling back to us begging for us to take him back. That was my attempt at being cocky, ok. I'm not very good at it as you may have just gathered. Anyways, I'm thrilled to see that he's back with us and I'm really liking the direction that the team is headed in the offseason. The team has added more grit and physicality and I am hoping that some of our players matured over the offseason and will be better for it next season.

I feel like I should mention this before I say anything else, but I will not be commenting on Pat Kane's arrest due to personal reasons. I don't really feel like I have much else to contribute to the whole situation anyways, considering the story has made headlines in more places that Pat would like to think about. Everyone's opinion on the arrest is already out there so I don't feel lke mine really matters. So that's that.

In other news, one of my readers, Chris sent me a video of the Goose being interviewed on a local Portland TV station. A highlight in the interview is him talking about his golfing "skills". A big thanks to Chris for giving us a Goose fix!

Speaking of hockey players going all PR on us, Ryan Miller was the Grand Marshal at Watkins-Glen for the Crown Royal 200 where he promoted his Steadfast Foundation and gave details about Catwalk for Charity IV. It's 50s-themed this year...as I have mentioned before on here I'm a sucker for anything vintage (basically anything between the eras of the 20s to the 70s), so I'm pretty excited. I already have a real vintage 1950s cocktail dress that I think I'm going to wear. I wore it to one of my homecoming dances when I was in high school and I did my hair to resemble my homegirl Marilyn and I got many flattering compliments where people were saying I looked like her. I'm definitely going to pay homeage to my favorite lady again and do the Marilyn look again at this year's Catwalk. I'm going to have to pull up my collection of thousands countless pictures I have of Marilyn to get some inspiration on how I'm going to look. I'm sure there will be people there doing the whole Marilyn thing, but I'm going to try and be a little different. There's more to Marilyn than a white billowing dress being blown up by a NYC subway breeze. Even for last year's Catwalk, I was able to get a little bit of Marilyn in my look by wearing a hidden flask in a garter belt to go along with the 1920s speakeasy theme. In one of my favorite Marilyn movies, Some Like It Hot, she wears the same thing since the setting is during the 1920s Prohibition days. So that was my Marilyn inspiration...this time around I'll be able to do even more since the 50s was during Marilyn's prime as a movie star. One thing that got me nervous though was the details on Sabres.com about the event, it said that if all tickets sell through sponsorship sales, then no individual tickets will be available. I would be saahhhh upset if it sells out before individual tickets go onsale...I look forward to this event every year.

Anyways...I just returned to Buffalo after spending some time in Chicago for Lollapalooza. Lollapalooza is a huge 3 day long music festival that Chicago has hosted for the past 5 years and I went for the first time last year and I was hooked. There are always huge headlining music acts along with smaller acts throughout the day. It's a great music festival in a great city. I saw Kings of Leon the first day and I had never seen them live before. They blew me away. I have seen them peform live on TV before, so I knew I was in for a good show, but being there in person is a completely different experience. Along with Kings of Leon, my other favorite acts that I saw were the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bon Iver, Chairlift, and Santigold. I met a lot of really great people from all over while I was there. I'm talking like people from Portugal, Mexico, Spain, and Ireland. It's crazy that they come all the way to a music festival...but it definitely is worth it. My friend who I went to the festival with also had a gift certificate to The Refinery that she won at a previous Catwalk for Charity, so we stopped in East Lansing on our way back and I got a really cute dress and a cardigan. I uploaded some videos I took at Lollapalooza incase anyone is interested. Here is a video of me just walking around the festival, it shows you how big it is and how many people were there. And here is a video of me leaving the festival on the second day. Buckingham Fountain is in the second video and it's amazing...my video of it doesn't do it justice.

So now I'm back home but I leave again in a few days to spend some time up at my cousin's cottage. I'm so excited to hang out on a boat all day...as long as the weather cooperates. This summer has been really sketchy weather-wise...but I guess that's Buffalo for you.

What's the Buzz?

...Tell me what's a-happenin'. I figured I should jump on any Sabres-related news since it's few and far between at this point in the offseason and who knows when I'll be given another opportunity!

The Sabres announced a few days ago that they signed Cody McCormick. I don't know much about him, but from doing a little research on the internet and blogs, apparently he's a fourth-liner grinder who likes to fight. He signed a 2-way deal with the team, so it remains to be seen if he'll be spending more time in Portland or in the Buff.

It's clear that the front office is trying to add a little bit more grit and physicality to the line-up, which I can't say I disagree with. Although there are the fans out there that are saying that Darcy is an idiot and wasting all his time signing these no-name players while he should have been busy going after Bouwmeester and Hossa. Of course these are the same fans that complained during the season that our team is full of wimps and sissy boys who are too afraid to fight or stand up for each other. Some fans must really take pleasure in always complaining and being negative...but what can you do?

Teppo Numminen also announced to a Finnish magazine that he is retiring (the article is just translated by Google, so it's pretty rough). I know most fans expected that Teppo would take this route, but it's still a little sad considering he's been in the league for so long. I've always liked Teppo and I've respected the type of game he played. He seems like a good guy and he should be proud of himself for lacing up the skates and getting back into NHL action after having a serious heart procedure. I hope the next chapter in his life is fulfilling and relaxing. Cheers, Teppo!

I also wanted to comment a little bit on Ryan Miller's latest blog post...I mean if Puck Daddy is going to, then I might as well too. First I want to say that I disapprove of his editor making him censor out his sassiness. I'm sure everyone who has read my blog before has noticed that I love when people get sazzzy and Ryan really knows how to bring the sass. I guess his editor is worried about Ryan ruining his public image because he said Twitter is dumb. Let's be serious here now...a website with a name like "Twitter" where people send "tweets" to each other, must not be a website with a plethora of knowledge. Just sayin'.

I have to say that I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks Twitter is one of the most pointless websites ever. I remember when people started joining it and telling me about it, I didn't quite "get it"...and I still don't to be quite honest. Maybe it's because I barely update my Facebook status and that's essentially what Twitter is. I like Facebook because it's a great way to communicate with people that I don't usually get the chance to see on an every day basis. For instance, a friend from high school who is from Afghanistan just told me via Facebook that he's back in the area and would like to get together with me so we can catch up. But it seems that while that was Facebook's intention when the website was created, it's being used less for that and more for people posting pictures of them drunk at parties and updating their Facebook statuses informing people of what they just had for breakfast or what they plan on doing for the rest of the week. I think Ryan probably has a little more of a stronger opinion on these websites because of his position. He's a celebrity and a professional athlete. He's probably has had his fair share of stalkers and creepy situations and having Facebook and Twitter accounts would only stregthen the chances of getting stalked. But for us ~normal~ people, we don't really have to worry as much about it than someone like Ryan Miller (although I still don't understand why people have their phone numbers listed on their profile). Actually, the other day some guy from Dubai messaged me asking me if I could come live with him because I was such a "nice, pretty girl" and so I could teach him English. Awesome.

It's funny that he made a post about social networking sites because last semester I actually wrote a paper about social networking sites and just the rapid growth in technology in general and its affects on society for my sociology class. My point was that I think it's a double-edged sword. I like blogging and posting/reading on message boards because it opens doors and gives us access to communicate and exchange news from people from all over the world. Especially with hockey because it's not as publicized on sports media outlets as other mainstream sports. I've even met some really cool people through Sabres message boards and I consider them my good friends now. But technology can also detach us from real-life interaction. It's so common nowadays to see two people sitting down at dinner or something and both people have their cell phones out and they're just texting away. People have become really dependent on their phones and their Facebook & Twitter accounts and I just find it a little annoying and excessive. "Everything in moderation", ya know?

We all know that Buffalo summers are long enough, so I guess Mother Nature decided that rain and thunderstorms should overtake our 3 months of summer and cut it in half. I can't believe that it's already August...here's hoping for it being a sunny one and hopefully we have a warm fall. I have so much stuff to do before I go back to school on the 31st. So far this summer I've been working a lot, apartment hunting, and trying to get out when the days are nice enough. I still need to figure out a lot of stuff with school before I go back. My cousins were in from India this past weekend and I half jokingly said that I should take a semester off and live in India with them. I would love to go...but I don't know about an entire semester. Think about all the hockey I would miss! Speaking of which, I still need to figure out how many games I'm going to go this year with my mini-pack...and I'm still waiting for my renewal letter to come in the mail. This upcoming week I have a lot going on and I'll be away from Buffalo for a bit...it's coming at a really nice time because I could use a little getaway.

Ryan Miller & Paul Gaustad: Choke Artists?

Hmm, not quite. But in some ways apparently they are. Today while I waiting for my lunch at the Globe Market, I was waiting to use the bathroom. While standing there I came across a very intriguing choking poster. While looking at what I thought was your typical generic choking poster that's in every eating establishment in North America, right in front of me was Ryan Miller playing the role of an unresponsive choking victim. Nothing short of amazing. With a goofy grin on my face, I searched the poster more and guess who was acting as the poor soul who first realizes that they are choking? No other than our own Paul Gaustad! Wutttt. I have honestly no idea why the hell they're on the poster but the only thing I can think of is that they're probably both regulars at the Globe Market. Well, I've seen Ryan there more than once. I've never seen the Goose there, but I'm sure almost everyone has seen him meandering around Elmwood before so I can just assume that he and Ryan frequent the Globe Market when they're on bro dates together (the last time I saw Ryan there he was totally on a bro date with Andrew Peters...and the server gave Ryan my sandwich...but I let it slide).

Anyways, I couldn't leave without snapping a few pictures of this glorious poster. So for your viewing pleasure...I give you the best choking poster I have ever seen:



Clearly being unresponsive is very unamusing to Ryan Miller.



He's a little harder to make out, but make no mistake...that is the Goose!

It was harder for me to get a picture of Gaustad because the top of the poster was more than a foot higher than me (which is a pretty accurate height differential between the Goose and I), but Ryan was all up in my grill.

So I just made a whole blog entry about a choking poster that has Ryan Miller's and Paul Gaustad's faces taped onto it...yeah, it must be the offseason.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

I hope Ryan appreciates that I dragged myself out of bed after a hard night of drinking with my cousins at their cottage up at the lake to wish him a happy birthday, but that's the kind of dedicated fan I am (actually I may or may not have a hair appointment at noon). Today a certain sassy goalie turns the big 2-9. So happy birthday Ryan! I hope you drink lots of booze and you get plenty of sexy gifts from all of your friends and family. For my present I am sending you some positive hippie vibes to ensure a successful 2009-2010 season. And here's hoping that your bitchy left ankle doesn't give you any more shit.




I hope your BFF Goose gave you a call or a text to wish you a happy birthday (I just wanted a reason to post that picture to be completely honest).



Sparty on Ryan, Sparty on.



*This post has been approved by Ryan Miller*

Schedule's Out

Before I dive into the plethora of hockey news that I'm about to get into (because when I have more than 2 hockey-related things to talk about in July, it's considered a "plethora" of hockey news), I first want to mention that my cat of several years passed away yesterday. It's never easy to lose a pet, and Hershey was my beloved kitty since I was a little kid. He had been sick for a little while and yesterday he took a turn for the worst. He was a very sweet cat who just loved to cuddle with us. I'll miss him.



His eyes look pretty scary in that picture and the picture is out of focus, but it's the most recent picture I have of him. He's standing next to one of my three dogs, Toby.


- Anyways...as all of you already know, the schedule for the 2009-2012 NHL season was released yesterday! As excited as I was about the schedule being released, just when I hear the word "schedule" makes me remember that I still need to figure out my schedule for next semester and...eeesh. But anyways...I'm glad to see that Chicago is coming to town. I'm definitely going to go to that one. I was thinking about also taking a road trip and going to an away game. I've never been to a Sabres game on the road before. I was thinking about maybe going to the Detroit game in March. We'll see. I'm also looking forward to the Calgary game. I like going to games where the Sabres are playing opponents that you don't usually see very often. I would also like to go to a Sharks, Caps, and Rangers game too. I fucking hate the Rangers so I go in hopes that we beat their ass. But then there's a chance that we lose and it pisses me off even more because I hate the team so much...but hey it's a gamble! That's what sports is about. I wonder when mini-pack forms will be mailed out. Hmm...

- Patrick Kaleta accepted his qualifying offer from the Sabres yesterday. I don't think many people had any doubts whether or not he'd return to the team next season, given he's a hometown boy and all, but it's still good to see that we have one of our RFAs signed. Now we have to see if management can strike a deal with MacArthur before he heads to arbitration. Then of course there's Stafford and Sekera. We'll see...

- Lastly, someone on the Sabres forums posted some cool videos of Thomas Vanek training with the hockey strength and conditioning coach from the University of Minnesota. They're pretty interesting videos to watch and it gives us a little peek into some of the training that the hockey players do in the offseason. Here's a link to a clip of Vanek doing 180 reverse bench jumps...intense stuff. If you look to the lower left of the screen under "Related Clips" there are a bunch of other clips of Vanek doing different exercises and some interviews.

PS: This is my 100th post...crazy! Now I'm off to my cousin's cottage in Ontario to have some drinks and spend some time on the beach. I think I deserve it after putting in so many hours of blogging, amirite?!

Weighing in on the Moves

I figured I should weigh in on the moves that the Sabres have made so far this offseason. To no ones surprise, the Sabres did not make any shocking or huge moves, but they did make minor tweaks to the roster. Our biggest depature has been Jaroslav Spacek, as he and about 45 other NHLers headed on over to Montreal for greener pastures. I've always been indifferent on Spacho. I think he is a good defenseman, but I don't know if I would call him a difference-maker. It remains to be seen if his void will be noticeable. His wonderfully eloquent inteviews will be sorely missed by me though.

The Sabres added defensemen Steve Montador and Joe DiPenta. I'm going to be honest and say I know nothing about DiPenta, but I know the kind of defenseman Montador is. Montador will add some more grit to the blueline, which is an essential piece to winning I think. He's not Chris Pronger, but I can see him finding a nice role on our squad and being a reliable blueliner. This could all be blind optimism, but who really knows!

The Sabres also re-signed Matt Ellis, which I was pleased about. Ellis is a player that you really can root for and I thought he did his job very well when he played for us. I'd hope to see him get more playing time because if I recall correctly, the team won a lot when he was in. Coincidence? Hmm. Moore, Peters, Numminen, and Afinogenov are our UFAs that are still not signed by any clubs as of now, and Moore is the only player that I can see potentially returning to play for us. Numminen is probably going to retire, and I think Max is just going to need a change of scenery for him to get back on track. Peters? Well he is a cheap player so if the Sabres re-signed him it wouldn't be the end of the world but I know a lot of fans would overreact. I wish the best for all of our recently departed players, though.

There is something else that I want to touch on but I won't harp on it for too long. After reading various Sabres blogs and message boards, I just cannot stand how much some fans love to complain and be negative. Look, I know that coming into the offseason after missing the playoffs for two straight seasons doesn't exactly make fans want to feel positive, but I think there are a good handful of fans out there who have grown accustomed to putting a negative spin on everything. Especially with our management. Our front office doesn't have the best track record over the past few years, but I think fans need to look at some things with a more clear head. During the season many fans (and the media) complained that our team lacked toughness and grit and we needed to add more grinders to our roster. So this offseason Darcy acquires a few of those grinders, and many fans are complaining that Darcy is wasting his time with "bad" hockey players because they don't have as much skill or talent as other players on the market. Fans also complain when Darcy doesn't make trades to get rid of certain players like Hecht or Tallinder. I don't think some fans realize that trades aren't as easy to make as they are in NHL 09. You aren't going to trade Hecht for Malkin. Yes I'm aware that's an extreme example, but you understand the gist.

Darcy has always made more subtle moves than other GMs when it comes to free agency, and he likes to trade or find players from within our system. Many fans are fed up with Darcy's lack of moves in the offseason. But to look on the flip-side of things would signing a player to a mega deal really help this team to win a Cup? Did Hossa win a Cup for Detroit? Did Campbell get a Cup for Chicago? Did Drury and Gomez get a Cup for the Rangers? Did Mats Sundin get Vancouver's name engraved on Lord Stanley? Now that's not to say that acquiring a top marquee player is a mistake, but I just think that free agency can be extremely overhyped and teams can overpay for a player out of desperation and it can really leave a team in a tight spot in the upcoming years. I mean, who was the most active team in last year's free agency? If I recall correctly it was Tampa Bay.

I'm not saying that fans always have to agree with our front office's decisions, I'm just saying that it's okay to also look at things with a more level head and maybe things aren't as bad as the fans and the media perceives them to be. We have a bunch of young talent in the AHL and some of them already seem to be ready to make the jump to the NHL (Myers?). I'm not saying these kids are going to come in be our saviors, but it will be fun and exciting to see some fresh faces and it will be interesting to see how they fair. And believe it or not, we still have a lot of talent on our current roster, and they really can be a playoff team... There are a lot of "ifs", but I do believe that this team is capable of making the playoffs. It's really in the player's hands and as easy as it is to be negative about our situation, I just will always try to see the best in situations and I know that this team has the tools to being a very good team. Look at Pittsburgh. They were in 10th place for a good stretch and they were battling to clinch a playoff spot during the tight Eastern Conference playoff race, but they clinched a spot and they battled their way to the Cup. While everyone had their eyes on the top teams like San Jose, Detroit and Boston, Pittsburgh continued to play great hockey and got the ultimate reward. Granted they have players like Crosby and Malkin on their team, but my point is anything can happen in the playoffs.

The offseason isn't over yet and there are still players out there and the Sabres can still make moves. But as of now, I am still being patient and I'm not about to throw in the towel for the 09-10 season 3 months before the season begins.